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VW Loses Legal Bid to Keep Diesel Scandal Report Under Wraps

Raid of Jones Day in Munich cleared by constitutional court
Court allows access to report, rejects client-privilege claim

First Day Of The 2013 Frankfurt Motor Show — Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg

By

Karin Matussek and

Christoph Rauwald

July 6, 2018, 7:54 AM UTCUpdated onJuly 6, 2018, 9:02 AM UTC

Volkswagen AG lost a suit at Germany’s top court seeking to ban Munich prosecutors from using a report they seized from Jones Day, the U.S. law firm the carmaker hired to investigate the roots of its diesel-emissions scandal.

The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe ruled that under German law the attorney-client privilege, which protects the work of a lawyer for a client, only bans prosecutors from seizing documents if the lawyer is working for a suspect in a criminal case.